Digitalanalogue – Spiel Protokoll (Video Premiere)

Broken Records' Ian Turnbull is back under the guise of his electronic side project Digitalanalogue, having released his brand new Spiel Protokoll EP earlier in the month. The Skinny are delighted to be premiering the music video for the album's title track, which you can watch in the above YouTube player (click here if it's not displaying correctly). A mix of stop motion and family videos, the video perfectly complements the laid-back stomp of the track.

To tell us more about Digitalanalogue and in particular his new EP, here's a short essay from the man himself:

"Digitalanalogue is the name of my solo instrumental side project when I’m not mashing the keys with Broken Records. It’s a project that’s been bubbling away in the background since around 2001 when I was at uni in St Andrews, in part inspired by the homemade DIY approach of the Fence Collective that was also emerging in town around that time. Early recording attempts were appropriately low-tech and featured old Yamaha keyboards and transistor organs, cheap drum machines and guitars, all fed into a cobbled together recording setup of tape 4-track, mini-disc recorder and a laptop borrowed from my flatmate with a (then) bleeding-edge copy of Sound Forge.

"The technology has moved on since then but it’s still very much a homemade effort. It’s a chance to explore making different sorts of music than I’d make with the band, and there’s two different approaches taken when writing Digitalanalogue tracks. Some tracks are written with a definite purpose and theme like the ones that make up my debut album Be Embraced, You Millions! (birth, death and terminal illness – sorry, it’s a bit of a downer).

"The new Spiel Protokoll EP is the complete opposite. It’s seven short electronic doodles recorded at various points over 15 years, with no intended theme other than they were made entirely for the fun of making music. In most cases they’re largely improvised or written while they’re recorded, and usually came about as a result of just playing around to try out whatever new synth or recording equipment I’d got my hands on at the time.

"The idea for Spiel Protokoll as a name came from, of all things, an old crazy golf card I found recently from when I was a kid on holiday in Austria. I thought it sounded as if it should be a Kraftwerk song or something, and I liked the idea of it meaning rules of the game or order of play (though I think it maybe actually translates as ‘score card’!). It also fits in with trying new things while still working within set rules and patterns, particularly when making electronic music with sequencers and loops.

"The video for the title track keeps with this idea of play, exploration, imagination, seeing how the pieces of the puzzle fit together, and overall just having fun. There are lots of reasons for making music, but it’s best when it’s fun to do!"

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Spiel Protokoll is out now via J Sharp Records and available to buy and download here

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